I am trying to start the above on an HP laptop I have. It gets so far where it displays 4 messages about disabling IRQ's and then never seems to get any further. I have used this CD on a different laptop and it worked fine.

When you boot to the CD/DVD or USB device if you get to the first menu and select Parted Magic you'll get another menu for boot options for Parted Magic.

Laptops often have issues with the graphics/displays. If it boots to "fail safe" mode you may be good or you may be able to adjust the boot parameters if needed to get a specific device "HDD/SDD controller" working.

Is it showing the HDD at all? It is an older laptop but PartedMagic still may have issues with drivers (and the included version of PartedMagic is definitely dated). You can try downloading a newer version of Parted Magic -- https://partedmagic.com/ but they charge for it now, although the fee is reasonable. You could also try a much newer distro such as GParted Live --> https://gparted.org/ -- but I don't recall if they have a windows password reset utility.

What windows version are you working with?

Instead of resetting the password you can try using --> http://ophcrack.sourceforge.net/ --- If you put Ophcrack on a flash drive and it doesn't see the tables, move the tables folder/directory to the root of the drive.

So I also had tried a ophcrack cd before but it would also hang. Then last night all of a sudden I thought it might be for XP as I created it some time ago. I created a new bootable cd for W7 and sure enough this time it worked. Unfortunately it shows 'not found' for password for any of the three ID's that are on the system. I think my friend is just going to have to do a better job of remembering her passwords. I already had to recover her desktop.

When I run 'View Cracked Passwords' O get a message that says table not found. I know you had suggested moving the files to the root directory, but how do I do that with a bootable CD. I don't think a USB stick will work because I can't even get into windows. She has three ID's on the machine and can't remember the password for either of them.

If you burned the Ophcrack ISO to CD you should be good unless you downloaded the version with no tables... If you create a bootable USB with Ophcrack you may have to move the tables folder but not if your using a CD/DVD.

You can also download more tables but some are quite large and some are "not free". I've had a few systems that it just did not find the password but most have worked.

Since you are working on a Windows 7 PC, you can also try a winbuilder based CD/DVD and some are available as an ISO.

I went to the http://ophcrack.sourceforge.net/, clicked Download ophcrack LiveCD no installation. On the next screen I chose the middle button, ophcrack Vista/7 LiveCD. I originally thought this meant Vista or Windows 7, but looking around at other sites I have seen Vista/8 and Vista/9 making me wondering if 7 is the version of Vista, and the reason why it is not working.

What is the name of the tables so I can double check my cd to see if they are there? If I can get any free tables, I am assuming I can only add them to a bootable USB ( I am starting to see the advantage of a USB).

I see that Winbuilder is a different piece of software. If I create a W7 boot cd with this, what do I do after I have booted with it?

I still haven't had any luck with UBCD or ophcrack. I downloaded a copy f Windows Password Key. The demo ran and says it is compatible with the machine I am trying to recover, but you have to buy it for it to actually do anything. Are you familiar with it and have you ever tried it?

Thanks so much for your help. Luckily enough I did have a 32 and 64 bit Windows 7 recovery cd. I followed the instructions on the Livewire link and it worked. As someone who helps people with their computers I am happy there are hacker tools like this but as a personal user it certainly scares me a bit how easy it is to get into my laptop if it were ever stolen.